The Eclectic Musical Theatre Playlist - SPECIAL FESTIVE EDITION
Your Perfect Festive Musical Theatre Playlist
Thanks for checking out The Eclectic Musical Theatre Playlist on the Jason Ward Creative Substack. In this episode we have a wonderful selection of Musical Theatre songs about the Festive Season. I hope you enjoy the music and I would love you to join the ever growing community of readers and listeners by taking out a subscription. Happy Holidays to you all, thank you for your company in 2023 and let’s hope 2024 will bring us all joy, love and peace..
EPISODE EIGHT -FESTIVE SPECIAL
Click here to listen on APPLE MUSIC
I Love Christmas - Fra Fee FROM Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (Music from the Netflix Film)
With fa-la-la-la-las, a Dickensian setting and Fra Fee’s wonderfully joyous vocal this song encapsulates what so many of us who love the Festive Season feel. This song a great way to open the movie and deserves to become a standard opener in any Christmas variety show. Don’t worry that the animation in the movie is a bit ropy or the whole thing does not hang together as well as the original just sing this as loud as you can while putting up your tree or opening your stocking!
Check out the movie on Netflix.com
Snow - Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen FROM Selections from Irving Berlin's "White Christmas"
The quartet are on a train on their way to Vermont where they will be enjoying some wonderful Snow (they think) when this jewel of a song springs out of the rhythm of the train tracks. The building harmony lines and gentle melody give us a kind of I Want song about the joys of a winter vacation. Clearly what the audience is seeing is two potential couples being formed as they all start to coalesce around the idea of the wonder of snow. For full disclosure I have always found the line ‘wash my hands, my face, my hair in snow’ slightly odd and the line about building a ‘big man’ out of snow might be described in the language of the time as ‘lustful’!
The stage musical Irving Berlin’s White Christmas is an absolute treat and is playing at the Sheffield Crucible this winter. Find out more and book here:
Irving Berlin's White Christmas
Lovers On Christmas Eve-Brent Barrett from the album Christmas Mornings. Song from the show I Love My Wife by Michael Stewart and Cy Coleman
I Love My Wife was a show that was both of its time and ahead of it. The show is ostensibly a satire on the 1970s sexual revolution and winds up with two couples contemplating engaging in some Festive Swinging on Christmas Eve - aided by pot and a sex manual. In 1977 the show won two Tony Awards and was nominated for an Olivier Award for best musical (losing out to A Comedy of Errors by the RSC - anyone?). The delicate and playful jazz feel to the song and lyrics works out of context as a gentled Christmas love song but it’s really about being lovers with another couple on Christmas Eve - so be clear before you put it into your Holiday set list cabaret crooner! Lea DeLaria did a great interview about the show here:
And this is how the show looked in 1977:
Check out this version by Miss Vodka Stinger at 54 Below
It Feels Like Christmas-The Muppet Christmas Carol (Movie Soundtrack) Song by Paul Williams
The Muppets and Michael Caine gave us probably the most charming version of Dickens’ Christmas Carol. The movie was an intelligent retelling of the tale and Michael Caine gives a great straight performance in the role of Scrooge. The Muppet Christmas Carol not a box office success at the time but has gone on to become a cherished part of many festive seasons. It Feels Like Christmas is a classic ‘list song’ that names many of the things that make it feel like Christmas although of course the most important is ‘wherever you find love it it feels like Christmas’ Is it lightweight and a bit like a nursery rhyme? Yes but, who cares, because it feels like Christmas!
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas- Kelly Clarkson from the album Wrapped in Red. Original Version by Hugh Martin and Ralph Bland from the movie Meet Me In St Louis
This is one of those songs that has taken on a life of its own well outside its original setting. Originally this was a tender ballad from the movie Meet Me In St Louis but it has gone on to be covered by virtually every artist who has ever recorded a Christmas album. I have a special place in my heart for Kelly Clarkson’s two (so far!) Christmas albums which is why I chose this version.
A Christmas Song - Sebastian Arcelus, Amy Spanger & The Original Broadway Company Of Elf The Musical FROM Elf The Musical
The simplicity and joy of Christmas magic in one song! I love this version with Kyle Adams as Buddy the elf and Samantha Pauly as Jovie at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora, from 2017.
Christmas Day - Promises, Promises Ensemble FROM Promises, Promises (New Broadway Cast Recording (2010))
The obvious choice from this show is to go for Turkey Turkey but this song has a lovely touch of melancholy that reminds me, unsurprisingly, of The Carpenters. This version by The Lennon Sisters seems to have about 20 family members (who are clearly not all sisters) and is a really beautiful rendition of Burt Bacharach’s melody.
Its Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas - Leslie Odom Jr from The Christmas Album
The song has a tenuous link to musical theatre because it was incorporated by Meredith Wilson into 1963 Broadway musical Here's Love, where it is sung in counterpoint to the newly composed song "Pine Cones and Holly Berries". Listen to this version and you will never go back to Buble!
Merry Almost Christmas - Mark Linn-Baker, Jay Goede, Danielle Ferland, Kate Reinders & Frank Vlastnik FROM A Year with Frog and Toad (Original Cast Recording)
Sweet and saccharine this charming song is about the importance of friendship during the Festive Season.How wonderful it can be to experience Christmas with the same person every year as you build traditions and grow up together. It reminds me of people that I grew up with and how our Christmases gradually changed as we got older.
This version is from the Actors Theatre of Indiana 2015 production featuring Don Farrell and Bradley Reynolds
A Christmas Story - Tom Wopat, Clarke Hallum, John Bolton, Liz Callaway & Matthew Lewis FROM A Christmas Story: The Musical (Original 2012 Broadway Cast)
If you cross The Wonder Years with musical theatre and Christmas the result is A Christmas Story. Drawing heavily on nostalgia for an almost imaginary past. Charles Isherwood in The New York Times used the words ‘liable’ and ‘appropriate’ to describe this show which is a little damning with faint praise. However, A Christmas Story is intended as cute nostalgia and that is what it delivers! This is a lovely, lilting Festive tune.
We Need a Little Christmas (Glee Cast Version)- The Glee Cast from Glee: The Music - The Christmas Album
From the wonderful 1974 show Mame by Jerry Herman this song is intended to cheer everyone up by getting them into the Christmas spirit even though it’s only one week past Thanksgiving day! By today’s standards by the end of November we are already in full Christmas mode. And why the Glee version? Its the most festive version out there!
White Christmas -Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen FROM Irving Berlin’s White Christmas Movie Soundtrack
The perfect finale song to a show! The lyrics cleverly mix our emotional sense of nostalgia bout the festive seen with positive hopes and wishes for the future.
Thank you for reading the Jason Ward Creative Substack throughout 2023. I want to wish you all a wonderful Festive Season and a New Year 2024 filled with peace, joy and Love!
Best Wishes
Jason
My all-time favorite is from the 1970 musical Scrooge with Albert Finney. They are literally dancing on his grave ... er, casket.
https://youtu.be/Dkq7WZTzkLQ?si=U2bKWy2n77zk2xXi